Irena Ponaroshku is a Russian media personality, known as a VJ and host of the Russian Top 10 (Russkaya 10-ka) on MTV Russia

MTV Russia

MTV Russia is a Russian language free-to-air 24 hour entertainment and music service seen in 22 million households in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk, Voronezh, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, among other cities.-History:...

. She writes a weekly column for OK!

OK!

OK! is a British weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news. Originally launched as a monthly, its first issue was published in April 1993. In September 2004, OK! publishers Northern and Shell launched in Australia as a monthly title – the magazine went weekly in October 2006...

magazine, “The Week with Irena Ponaroshku” ("Nedelya s Irena Ponaroshku"). She is also known as the subject of racy photographs, which have appeared in the men’s magazine Maxim

Maxim (magazine)

Maxim is an international men's magazine based in the United Kingdom and known for its pictorials featuring popular actresses, singers, and female models, sometimes pictured dressed, often pictured scantily dressed but not fully nude....

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Biography

Little biographical information about Ponaroshku is publicly available. Her biography on the MTV web site formerly told a story of the daughter of a bass

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 player from the Polish group “Chervony Gitary”, Yanyk Ponaroshku, whose family fled Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 for the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in 1989 following the rise of the Solidarity movement. This information is repeated on numerous web sites. She has claimed that Ponaroshku “is not a pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

! It is a Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

-Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

 surname

Surname

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...

, like Zanavesku and other heroes of jokes about Stirlitz

Stirlitz

Max Otto von Stierlitz is the lead character in a popular Russian book series written in the 1960s by novelist Julian Semyonov and of the television adaptation Seventeen Moments of Spring, starring Vyacheslav Tikhonov, as well as in feature films, produced in the Soviet era, and in a number of...

!” However, she has stated in interviews that she was born in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and she was formerly known by the Russian name Irina Filippova .

Ponaroshku has given her height as 169 cm. She studied economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia is an educational and research institution located in the South of Moscow and is ranked by the Ministry of Education of Russia as the country's third-best university after Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University...

 in Moscow.

She got her start on MTV as a teen when cast for the Russian version of MTV's 12 Angry Viewers

12 Angry Viewers

12 Angry Viewers was a television show in the United States on MTV which aired from 1997 to 1998. The title is a play of title of the movie 12 Angry Men. Its first host was Jancee Dunn, with Ananda Lewis replacing her later on.-Premise:...

 show (12 zlobnykh zriteley), on which participants rated video clips. She caught the attention of a producer who offered her a spot as an assistant host. Before becoming the regular host of Russian Top 10, she appeared on the programs Fooling Around (Durakavalyaniye), Night Flirt (Nochnоy Flirt), The Total Show (Totalnoye shou), and Combined Chart (Svodny Chart).

She was the backstage reporter of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Eurovision Song Contest 2009

The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was the 54th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest and was hosted by Russia after their win in 2008. It took place between 12 and 16 May 2009 at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, Russia....

.

Ponaroshku bore a son on March 31, 2011.